Recently, the New York Times reported that several large banks have revoked their backing of student loans to students attending community colleges, for-profit institutions and other less selective and competitive postsecondary institutions. Meanwhile, funding for students attending more selective, public and private, four-year institutions has remained intact and unchanged.
You may be asking yourself at this point, “Why is the Homeless Alliance blogging about this?” While you may be correct in assuming that this is not an issue related directly to homelessness, it does have implications for low-income folks.
Community colleges and for-profit institutions are often a route for low-income students who cannot afford attendance at more expensive institutions, and cutting tuition assistance to students accessing this form of postsecondary education seriously limits their options. In a time when it is widely believed that postsecondary credentials are a necessity to economic security and several research studies indicate that higher education is stratifying along class lines (ie. more affluent students are in attendance at the more prestigious institutions), a move to cut loans for students that may already be economically disadvantaged only serves to further exacerbate economic disparities between the haves and the have-nots.
